Saturday, September 27, 2008

My results are as follows:Thank you for taking the Creativity Test. The results show your brain dominance as being:

Left Brain 41%

Right Brain59%

You are more right-brained than left-brained. The right side of your brain controls the left side of your body. In addition to being known as right-brained, you are also known as a creative thinker who uses feeling and intuition to gather information. You retain this information through the use of images and patterns. You are able to visualize the "whole" picture first, and then work backwards to put the pieces together to create the "whole" picture. Your thought process can appear quite illogical and meandering. The problem-solving techniques that you use involve free association, which is often very innovative and creative. The routes taken to arrive at your conclusions are completely opposite to what a left-brained person would be accustomed. You probably find it easy to express yourself using art, dance, or music. Some occupations usually held by a right-brained person are forest ranger, athlete, beautician, actor/actress, craftsman, and artist.

Your complete evaluation follows below:

Your left brain/right brain percentage was calculated by combining the individual scores of each half's sub-categories. They are as follows:

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The end of Free Speech in America has arrived at our doorstep. It's a new law called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and it is worded in a clever way that could allow the U.S. government to arrest and incarcerate any individual who speaks out against the Bush Administration, the war on Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security, the FDA, or any government agency (including me for sending this email and sending letters to the House and Senate!!!) . The law has already passed the House on a traitorous vote of 405 to 6, and it is now being considered in the Senate where a vote is imminent.

This act defines homegrown terrorism as: "(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. "

This act also allows for a central organization to be created to monitor, detect, and report on suspicious "homegrown terrorist activity within the United States". The definition of such activity is vague, leaving room for the possibility of anyone seriously advocating social change, restoration of the constitution, and advocating the organization of protests to "coerce the United States government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof".

This Act is undermining, and threatening, the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens to organize in dissent of the Patriot Act, NSA surveillance, telecom immunity, social injustice, the War on Terror, or any other program that the citizenry feels is in violation of their inalienable rights as U.S. citizens.

This is real - it has passed the house and is off to the senate, there is a reason mainstream Media is not covering this story - they don't want you to know what is going on!!!!

Please write your congresspersons on this. All U.S. citizens who are doing nothing but voicing their opinions against a government that has expanded their executive powers, bypassed our congressional check and balance, and has undermined our U.S. Judiciary System, are now at risk, by this new act, of being labeled and prosecuted as a terrorist. You may copy and paste the following letter if you would like when writing your elected officials.

I strongly oppose S. 1959, the Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. This is a misguided and dangerous piece of legislation. This legislation focuses the weight of the US government inward toward its own citizens under the guise of protecting us against "violent radicalization."

There are many causes for concern in HR 1955. The legislation specifically singles out the Internet for "facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process" in the United States. Such language may well be the first step toward US government regulation of what we are allowed to access on the Internet. Are we, for our own good, to be subjected to the kind of governmental control of the Internet that we see in unfree societies? This bill certainly sets us on that course.

This seems to be an unwise and dangerous solution in search of a real problem. Previous acts of ideologically motivated violence, though rare, have been resolved successfully using law enforcement techniques, existing laws against violence, and our court system. Even if there were a surge of "violent radicalization" -- a claim for which there is no evidence -- there is no reason to believe that our criminal justice system is so flawed and weak as to be incapable of trying and punishing those who perpetrate violent acts.

This legislation will set up a new government bureaucracy to monitor and further study the as-yet undemonstrated pressing problem of homegrown terrorism and radicalization. It will no doubt prove to be another bureaucracy that artificially inflates problems so as to guarantee its future existence and funding. But it may do so at great further expense to our civil liberties. What disturbs me most about this legislation is that it leaves the door wide open for the broadest definition of what constitutes "radicalization." Could otherwise non-violent anti-tax, antiwar, or anti-abortion groups fall under the watchful eye of this new government commission? Assurances otherwise in this legislation are unconvincing.

The Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act does not spell out terrorist behavior and leaves it up to the Commission itself to identify what is terrorism and what isn't. Language inserted in the act does partially define "homegrown terrorism" as "planning" or "threatening" to use force to promote a political objective, meaning that just thinking about doing something could be enough to merit the terrorist label. The act also describes "violent radicalization" as the promotion of an "extremist belief system" without attempting to define "extremist."

Legislation such as this demands heavy-handed governmental action against American citizens where no crime has been committed. It is yet another attack on our Constitutionally protected civil liberties. It is my sincere hope that we will reject such approaches to security, which will fail at their stated goal at a great cost to our way of life.

The citizens of the United States are protected under the constitution – this strips them of our first amendment rights of free speech. I Strongly urge you to vote no to this bill when it reaches the floor. The bill is far too vague and truly innocent people may be targeted for simply speaking their mind, or even writing their congressperson.

How long ago was it that Senator McCan't (as in McCan't get it up - Who by the way, supports medicare in paying for erectile dysfunction medication, but not birth control.) Oops, strayed off topic.

How long ago was it that Senator McCain was touting Senator Obama as a celebrity candidate with no substance? I seem to remeber a very recent commercial on t.v. likening Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears. If you missed it, here it is

Since McCain announced Governor Palin as his VP running mate, the newstands have exploded with her face plastered all over the "news" stands...

Seriously? Palintology??? They have got to be kidding. The only "ololgy" that woman is interested is in theology. They don't allow science in her world. The interesting thing here is that vaguely, paleontology is the study of fossils - is this an appropriate term to liken to a woman who doesn't believe in evolution?

And last but certainly not least, the Official Sarah Palin action figure ..

Are you kidding me? Parents, please this thing will give your kids nightmares for years. 2 weeks and 4 days ago, Governor Sarah Palin was all but unknown to the world outside of Alaska. 2 1/2 weeks from unknown to action hero. And who, Senator McCain is the celebrity in all of this???

Now, there is a reason that every where we look we see Sarah - the more everyone is talking about Palin, the less time they have to talk about the issues. Have we heard any issues from the McCain camp since she was announced as VP? Do not let the media get in the way of the issues that are important to you as a voter.

Become educated. Do not listen to everything you are told without reading between the lines. Your livelihood, your freedoms, and your lives are at risk here.

That's why he favored lifting the moratorium on off-shore drilling -- a move that prompted Big Oil to donate over $1 million to his campaign.

According to a Campaign Money Watch analysis of campaign finance data provided by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics Center, John McCain has accepted at least $1,069,854 from the oil and gas industry since 1989. [Source: Center for Responsive Politics via Campaign Money Watch]

The senate will likely be voting next week on these issues. Please call Senator McCain's office in Washington (202-224-2235), and tell him to stop siding with Big Oil and start supporting clean energy.

Check out some of the articles below to learn more about the raging battle between sustainability and Big Oil

With all of this information, does it really look like it is "Country First"? I think it is McCain First, and whose future is at stake here? Yours and mine. Check out his record for yourself - http://mccainsource.com/ then vote for your future.

As a country, our government wants to privatize wealth and socialize debt.

The recent events of the Black Monday has been a work in progress for many years. The de-regulation of the financial industry by our fearless leader George W. Bush has caused detrimental effects on all of us.

600,000 jobs have been lost since January alone. The housing market has absolutely tanked, thousands of families have lost their homes due to foreclosure. Gas prices are at an all-time high, and we are spending $5,000 every second of every single day on a war in Iraq that should never have been waged.

When institutions are deregulated you end up essentially the same as a football game with no referee on the field. It gets dirty and nasty really quick. On Monday September 15th, the stock market lost the most it had since Just after September 11, 2001. Tuesday, September 16 brought the market to it's lowest since the Great Depression.

Today President Bush announced yet more bailouts at the taxpayer's expense. Our government is going to buy the bad debts from the banks - with our tax dollars - experts are saying it could cost us 1 Trillion dollars. Those are tax dollars that need to be sent on our police forces, on our roads and bridges, on our schools, on our social security, on health care.

The reason for the failure is the total abandonment of regulation. The mantra of the Bush administration seems to be "Go ahead, we will look the other way -be greedy, and when you fail we will bail you out".

On Monday, Senator McCain said the fundamentals of our economy are strong. Check out this Wall Street Journal article and tell me how strong it seems. Sounds a lot like the repeated phrase we kept hearing from George W. that "we are not in a recession". Well, Georgie, what in the hell would you call this? Crisis is far to gentle of a word.

Does this scare the hell out o you like it does me? We are literally on the verge of financial collapse. Feel like it is out of your control? The people that have gotten us into this situation were voted into heir positions. People like you and I went into our little booths on the first Tuesday in November and put them into those positions. This has got to stop!!!

McCain has said himself that he doesn't know much about the economy. Is this who you want to pull us out of this mess?

A vote for John McCain will result in the same.He has voted with Bush 90% of the time .

Today I wrote a letter to my senators about the upcoming congress vote on the bailout of Wall Street. I do not believe that it is fair for the government to be privatizing profits and socializing losses. We the people - not we the congress, not we the corporations. WETHEPEOPLE should not be bailing out the corporations who took a gamble and lost.

Congress will be voting on this by Friday (they are taking another recess already so soon after taking the entire month of August off). If you want your voice heard on this, you must email, call, or fax your letters to them this week! There is no time to mail your letters.You can use this handy tool to find the contact information for your Senators: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/Feel free to use this letter, modify it, or pen your own. Not only is your future on the line - your children's future will also be drastically affected by the outcome of this vote.

Dear Senator :

I read recently in the New York Times about Bank of America's proposal to create a "Federal Homeowner Preservation Corporation that would buy up billions of dollars in troubled mortgages at a deep discount, forgive debt above the current market value of the homes and use federal loan guarantees to refinance the borrowers at lower rates" (New York Times, Feb 23, 2008).

I must express my outrage that a taxpayer-funded "bailout" for the huge financial institutions is being considered by Congress. This proposal—and others like it that I expect could emerge soon—are deeply troubling and socially destructive. They reward the risky behavior on the part of real estate speculators and big banks—behavior that has made safe and clean homes unaffordable for the average working American

The government's responsibility is to create and maintain laws (aka: regulations) to prevent banks / realtors / home buyers creating another disaster like this in the future. The government should not be privatizing profits and socializing losses. At this time, it is NOT the government's responsibility to save banks and home buyers from financial ruin after gambling their money and losing.

Any government intervention that seeks to soften the correction in housing prices or forgive debt is simply distributing the consequences of bad investment decisions by a tiny percentage of citizens to hundreds of millions of hard-working Americans. If the financial sector had not been de-regulated to today's point in the first place, we wouldn't be facing this situation now.

1) Many people in need of bailing out are there because they overextended themselves, not because they are poor.

2) The cost to bail these people out comes from everyone's pocket, even those who were responsible.

3) Because irresponsible people are buying homes at vastly overpriced values, responsible people are being priced out of the market. If you bought your home for the right reasons it should not matter that its value in the past 2 years has dipped over the course of 30 years. If you bought your home to make a quick buck, we don't want to pay for your gamble.

A home buyer must prove current income high enough to make the maximum payment during the life of the loan. The income must also be able to cover all known housing expenses such as taxes, insurance, association fees. As a responsible homeowner, I made sure I could meet my obligations before signing my mortgage. Now, my tax dollars are being used to bail out those that weren't as responsible. Hardly seems fair to a person who works hard to provide for my family and lives within my means.

4) The banks that gave sub-prime loans were gambling and lost. We don't bail out gamblers who go to Vegas, why is this different?

5) Bailing people out now will not stop the irresponsible behavior. Bail people out once and they will expect it again.

The Fed has already cut interest rate to 3.5%. This action causes inflation which is a burden on middle and lower classes that depends on salaries and suddenly have rising costs. It's essentially a hidden tax. Meanwhile, it's a boon for banks. If they can't make money in this environment, they should be out of business.

Do not be seduced by Wall Street lobbyists telling you that "the sky is falling" – if we really are heading into a depression, the government should not spend its last remaining dollars on saving leveraged homeowners and Wall Street speculators. They'll be more important things to save like teacher salaries and infrastructure when the real crisis hits.

Please keep your constituents wishes and futures in mind when working on this very important issue. It affects all Americans.

So how much exactly is 700 billion dollars? Well, If a person was to get $1million dollars every single day - It would take 2,000 years to make 700 billion dollars. since it is 2008 A.D., we can pretty much say that you would need $1 million dollars every single day since Jesus died.

Why the bailouts? well, obviously the failing banks have shaken up Wall Street, butlet's look a litlle closer at some of the lesser talked about facts. . . .

And that AIG (which received $85 billion in US tax dollars earlier this week) is one of the largest donors to McCain's pet think tank, "Reform Institute," which he co-founded in 2001http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/ames

So. . . upon closer look it appears to be more of the same cronie-isms that we have seen in the past 8 years. Sign the petition at the link at the end of this blog, fax your letters to congress TODAY. They are trying to push this through by Friday!!!!

In 2005, with John McCain's active support, President Bush and the credit card and banking industries passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA). The changes in the BAPCPA made it more difficult for ordinary consumers to discharge debt. The Bush/McCain law required:

Barack Obama voted against the law. He said, "… I think they were bad ideas, because they were pushed by the credit card companies, they were pushed by the mortgage companies, and they put the interests of those banks and financial institutions ahead of the interests of the American people. And this is typical."

Now Bush-McCain want to help those same banking institutions with a bailout. John McCain is not for the common man. He is not for the small-business man. He stands for big business.

You decide 2008

The following was taken from an e-mail I received:George Bush wants taxpayers to give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a $700 billion blank check - $2,333 for every man, woman, and child -to bail out Wall Street for its reckless speculation and greed. That's on top of $1.1 trillion for other recent bailouts, including A.I.G., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns.

The Paulson Plan is a total outrage with no restrictions, no accountability, and no repair of the underlying problem of foreclosures on fraudulent mortgages. Each of Bush's previous bailouts was sold as a cure for the financial crisis, but each had little effect. The Paulson Plan achieves only one goal with certainty: stealing from the middle class to protect the rich.

The current financial crisis is the direct result of 28 years of Right Wing Republican deregulation, corruption, and greed, which became fatally toxic under Bush-Cheney and the Republican Congress.

Congress must reject Paulson's Plunder and enact a plan with these progressive principles from the Backbone Campaign:

* The people who caused the problem or profited most should pay for it * Re-regulate to prevent this from happening again * Include Main Street in the bailout and invest in a new productive economy

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

you can google "McCain lies" and find hundreds of more incidences of stretching the truth.

Is this the type of integrity we want in our leader??? Speaking of integrity, how do you feel about a campaign who steals music without permission or compensation for the artists? He has stolen from Heart, Jackson Browne, John Cougar-Mellencamp, and Van Halen.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

I have had not one, but two of my yard signs removed from my yard in the past month. The first theft happened around August 12th. The second theft happened sometime between now and yesterday morning after I left for work.

It is not often that I endorse a candidate strongly enough to allow him or her to place a sign in my yard, but this year our household is behind Al Franken 110% and contacted his office to request campaign signs for our yard. I am downright pissed of that in this free country where we are able to express our views, and support the candidates that we want - that someone has the audacity to walk onto my private property not once, but twice - and remove the signs from my yard.

I will admit, I am tend to lean just an itsy bitsy teensie bit to left. However, I believe if the people that support the other side want to put a sign in their yard in support, they should be able to do whatever they want to in their own yard and I would never step onto someone else's property and remove their campaign signs.

Our freedom of speech is still protected under the first amendment of the constitution (at least last time I checked...)

So, if you are plucking campaign signs out of front yards in Minnesota suburbs - be careful,you never know when big brother may be watching and you could be charged with trespassing, theft, or vandalism. Worse yet, Karma returns in multitudes.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

So Johnny McCan't was caught wearing $400+ shoes. Okay, we can let that one pass. I mean after all, how many pairs of shoes does a man need. Maybe it is his one pair and they will last him several years.

We have all heard the story that he can't remember how many houses he and Cindy own. For most of us working Americans that's easy to answer. One (unless you have been foreclosed on in recent months like the tens of thousands out there!). Yes, the money the McCain's have was from Cindy's family who worked hard for it. It was earned money, I am not disputing that.

Let's look at Cindy's outfit for the opening night of the RNC -

A very well dressed, classy lady, isn't she? Well, that outfit cost well over $300,000!!! Nope, not a miss-print - I said $300k. Let's stop and think for a moment what $300,000 means to real people - working class people like you and me:

- one and a half houses (the national median home price of $206,500)- a year of Health Care Coverage for 750 people.- back-to-school supplies and clothes for 500 kids.- enough gas to drive across the country 543 times.- 365 round-trip flights from Washington, D.C., to Anchorage, Alaska.- enough money for three Troopergate investigations.

How in the world can people like that claim that the Obamas are elitist? That statement screams hypocrisy. Now, aside from the hypocrisy - how can people that live that elite, and with that kind of expendable income really be in touch with the American people? There is no way that they can understand the important issues and the struggles that working class America faces every day. 2 days before payday and you are struggling to find the $50 to fill up your gas tank to get to work, while Cindy McCain dons an outfit that costs more than what most of us put on a 30 year mortgage.

Just something to think about. Every single vote makes a difference.Become educated, and get out and vote Nov 4th.

Both of the 2008 presidential candidates are talking about lowering your taxes (aren't they always?)

Lets take a look at what actually would be happening here:

McCain: The average taxpayer in every income group would see a lower tax bill, but high-income taxpayers would benefit more than everyone else.

Obama: High-income taxpayers would pay more in taxes, while everyone else's tax bill would be reduced. Those who benefit the most are in the lowest income groups.

Under John McCain's plan, he would further cut takes on the top of the income levels - those who make over $2.9M would see a further reduction of $269,364, and those who make over $603,000 would see an additional reduction of $45,361.

Those of us who fall into the $38,000-$66,000 bracket (myself included) would see a cut under McCain's plan of $319. Under Obama's plan, that cut nearly triples to $1,042. So McCain isn't lying when he says his plan is to cut taxes, but the tax cuts he is planning on the middle class are nothing compared to the taxes he plans for the richest in the nation. Senator McCain is lying, however, when he says that Barack Obama is going to raise your taxes. Senator Obama will raise taxes on McCain's elitist friends, but I think they can afford it, don't you?

Why did W cut taxes of those who are richest, oh yeah - he wanted their votes. America, it is time for the middle class to take back their lives, and to re-distribute some of the wealth of this once great nation.